Rich Thompson
Founder Rich Thompson presents exciting opportunities to increase performance through a unique approach to talent, leadership, performance management and culture offering engaging presentations with entertaining real-life examples and processes that can be put to work immediately.
Speaker Topics
RELENTLESS: 5 FOUNDATIONAL CS OF LEADERSHIP
To be a good leader, you must connect to those being managed and be able to mobilize people in a way that drives production, engagement and value. In his work within 60 countries with managers exhibiting many different styles of leadership, Rich identified the traits that repeatedly were exhibited by the best leaders. Based on the lessons and inspirations of his book Relentless, Rich discusses these key qualities that result in authentic leadership which enables substantial and sustained success. His stories provide entertaining examples of how to lead authentically by creating strong followership through the qualities of courage, communication, coaching, connectedness and consistency.
Culture of Performance Management
When most people think of performance management, they think of the annual performance review that checks the box for HR. But a culture of performance management reaches far beyond an annual review and will alter the trajectory of your employees to achieve beyond basic expectations. Performance management drives greater performance because it increases engagement and productivity. It is an ongoing process that puts the employee’s individual goals in the forefront to ensure an employee’s success, and in turn the success of the organization. Rich discusses how to create this transformative culture that is an employee focused type of management involving clear and consistent communications and managerial courage.
Culture as a Competitive Advantage
Having been a part of impossible cultural transformations that have changed losers to winners, Rich shares his fascinating first-hand experiences with complete cultural transformations in both sports and in businesses around the globe. Rich outlines how to define culture, its importance to the organization and how it can be implemented. He shares his passion for helping others develop a culture that enables talent, leadership and management to thrive and leaves the audience inspired and excited to put culture to work as a competitive advantage.
Operationalizing Human Resources
People are a company’s most valuable asset. Yet often human resources is overlooked because HR is seen as the personnel department or compliance police. But there is a strategic opportunity organizationally if you can engage HR as a partner in the business and the owner of the people strategy. Rich demonstrates how to make HR relevant and valuable by aligning HR with the strategic goals of a company to take advantage of this often-untapped opportunity. In a world that desires measurable impact to the bottom line, Rich offers tools to prove its importance through quantitative or objective measures such as speed to competency, engagement scores and retention rates, as well as the ability to surround the business with talent that is best in class.
MANUFACTURING TALENT
What if you could take your best employees – the ones who culturally fit and uplift your organization – and successfully convert them into your most needed roles without the pitfalls of the Peter Principle?
The result is a win-win for everyone with the employee increasing his or her value-proposition and engagement translating into lower turnover and higher production. Rich speaks on how to utilize existing talent through upskilling and reskilling. The process means a company is not fishing from the same talent pool as everyone else, but instead is creating new pools of talent specific to its own company.
Rich has been featured in
Rich has presented at
GeoLearning
Taiwan HR Council
IAAP
IMA
Marquette University
major league baseball
Companies with a Heart
Home Improvement Industry Council
Indianapolis HR Council
University of Iowa
Zurich International School
Magic Workforce Solutions
NABA
Modis
INSEAD
AICPA
IMD
soliant
Rich has hosted workshops on Career Development at
Texas A&M
University of Alabama
Univeristy of Central Florida
Texas State University
University of Kansas
Flagler University
Jacksonville University
More Information on Rich Thompson
Rich Thompson is an accomplished global executive with more than 25 years of experience in staffing, recruiting, human resources, leadership development, culture, performance and talent management.
Rich’s passion for building strong cultures and winning teams started on the football field, as part of the revolutionary turnaround of the Wisconsin Badger football program under legendary Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez where Rich was 1st Team All Big Ten, Honorable Mention All-American and a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza award, given to the nation’s best placekicker. He was also a Free Agent with the Green Bay Packers for 2 years. More than 30 years later, he remains Wisconsin’s current record holder for the most field goals in a single season.
Rich’s career has been marked by success, growth and opportunity. He has held leadership roles across the globe with expansive scope and responsibilities. His expertise includes; Talent Attraction, Organizational Design, Development Strategy, Leadership Development, Compensation Strategy, Performance Management, and Culture Programs. He has been responsible for the design and development of talent and leadership programs for tens of thousands of people across 60 different countries as well as partnerships with three of the top business schools in the world.
In addition to talent strategies, Rich was the Chief HR Officer for a $10 billion region across North America, South America, the United Kingdom and Ireland where he developed a progressive and “best in class” operating model that changed how the function executed by aligning to operational strategies and increasing efficiencies. His unique blend of operational and HR experience positions him as an expert in functional alignment to operational execution, making HR a tactical source of revenue generation and driving a people strategy through engagement and productivity.
In 2020, Rich founded the Xtra Point Group, an HR consulting company, and XPG Recruit which provides talent and HR solutions to staffing and recruiting companies across the country. In 2021, Rich saw an opportunity to assist transitioning athletes and launched XPG Recruit-Athlete which helps athletes translate their unique skills and qualities into advantages in the workplace. In 2022, he launched Podium X, a personal branding software for athletes that helps maximize opportunities in NIL, careers, internships, and graduate school. The platform currently has partnerships with some of the most recognizable names in sports and works with student-athletes from over 300 different universities.
In 2023, Rich published a leadership book titled, Relentless: Leading through Performance, Relationships, and the Lessons of Sports, which delivers tools for people strategies every manager, at every stage of their career, can embrace to build and lead a winning business team.
Rich holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Master of Management from North Park University in Chicago. He is also a graduate of the Leadership Development Program at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Senior Leadership Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France and Leading in Innovation, at Hyper Island, in Stockholm, Sweden.
Rich is also the past Chairman of the 75th Gator Bowl.